Chapter 1

Question 1

popular psychology industry

Answer 1

sprawling network of everyday sources of information about human behaviour

Question 2

naive realism

Answer 2

belief that we see the world precisely as it is

Question 3

communalism

Answer 3

willingness to share our findings with others

Question 4

disinterestedness

Answer 4

attempt to be objective when evaluating the evidence

Question 5

confirmation bias

Answer 5

tendency to seek out evidence that supports our hypotheses and neglect or distort evidence that contradicts them

Question 6

belief perseverance

Answer 6

tendency to stick to our initial beliefs even when evidence contradicts them

Question 7

scientific theory

Answer 7

explanation for a large number of findings in the natural world

Question 8

hypothesis

Answer 8

testable prediction derived from a theory

Question 9

scientific scepticism

Answer 9

approach of evaluating all claims with an open mind, but insisting on persuasive evidence before accepting them

Question 10

pathological scepticism

Answer 10

tendency to dismiss any claims that contradict our beliefs

Question 11

Oberg’s dictum

Answer 11

premise that we should keep our mind’s open, but not so open that we believe virtually everything

Question 12

astrology

Answer 12

pseudoscience - predicting personalities and future from the precise date/time of a person’s birth

Question 13

critical thinking

Answer 13

set of skills for evaluating all claims in an open-minded and careful fashion

Question 14

extraordinary claims

Answer 14

the more a claim contradicts what we already know, the more persuasive the evidence for this claim must be before we accept it

Question 15

testability

Answer 15

testing predictions of theories to find out if the theory really describes the world

Question 16

Occam’s razor

Answer 16

if two hypotheses explain a phenomenon equally well, we should generally select the simpler one

Question 17

replicability

Answer 17

a finding must be capable of being duplicated by independent researchers following the same method

Question 18

ruling out rival hypothesis

Answer 18

findings consistent with several hypotheses require additional research to eliminate these hypotheses

Question 19

correlation vs causation

Answer 19

the fact that two things are associated with each other doesn’t mean that one causes the other

Question 20

novel prediction

Answer 20

an observation that would be likely/expected if a theory is true but unlikely/unexpected if the theory is false

Question 21

correlation-causation fallacy

Answer 21

error of assuming that because one thing is associated with another, it must cause the other

Question 22

variable

Answer 22

anything that can vary

Question 23

third variable problem

Answer 23

case in which a third variable causes the correlation between two other variables

Question 24

psuedoscience

Answer 24

set of claims that seems scientific but is not

Question 25

non-scientific knowledge

Answer 25

assertions about aspects of reality that are not experimentally testable

Question 26

ad hoc immunising hypothesis

Answer 26

loophole that defenders of a theory used to protect their theory from falsification

Question 27

peer review

Answer 27

mechanism whereby experts in a field carefully screen the work of their colleagues

Question 28

connectivity

Answer 28

extent to which a researcher’s findings build on previous findings

Question 29

rational thinking

Answer 29

thinking that relies on careful reasoning and objective analysis

Question 30

experiential thinking

Answer 30

thinking that depends on intuitive judgements and emotional reactions

Question 31

transcendental temptation

Answer 31

desire to alleviate our anxiety by embracing the supernatural

Question 32

terror management theory

Answer 32

theory proposing that our awareness of our death leaves us with an underlying sense of terror with which we cope by adopting reassuring cultural worldviews

Question 33

pareidolla

Answer 33

tendency to perceive meaningful images in meaningless visual stimuli

Question 34

apophenia

Answer 34

tendency to perceive meaningful connections among unrelated phenomena

Question 35

logical fallacies

Answer 35

traps in thinking that can lead to mistaken conclusions

Question 36

emotional reasoning fallacy

Answer 36

error of using our emotions as guides for evaluating the validity of a claim

Question 37

bandwagon fallacy

Answer 37

error of believing a claim is correct just because many others believe it

Question 38

either-or fallacy

Answer 38

error of framing a question as though we can answer it in only one of two ways

Question 39

not me fallacy

Answer 39

error of believing we are immune form thinking errors that afflict others

Question 40

bias blind spot

Answer 40

lack of awareness of our biases, coupled with an awareness of others’ biases

Question 41

opportunity cost

Answer 41

investment of time, energy and effort in a questionable treatment that can lead people to forfeit the chance to obtain an effective treatment